LONDON — dSPACE (Paderborn, Germany) and Vector Informatik (Stuttgart, Germany) have optimized the interoperability of their AUTOSAR tools, TargetLink and DaVinci Developer to provide developers of engine control unit (ECU) software with a seamless interaction between the tools.

TargetLink is a production code generator and DaVinci Developer a AUTOSAR design tool. DaVinci Developer and TargetLink interact by exchanging AUTOSAR XML files in accordance with AUTOSAR methods. This procedure is used for the initial design and also for subsequent development iterations. Either a top-down or a bottom-up approach can be used.

Developers use Vector's DaVinci Developer to design the AUTOSAR architecture of an ECU. dSPACE's says its TargetLink is used to 'breathe life' into the application components of the software architecture produced with DaVinci.

The components are modeled in Simulink/TargetLink and then quickly turned into AUTOSAR-compliant production code by TargetLink. Finally, the production code is integrated into an ECU on the basis of the MICROSAR RTE (Runtime Environment) by using Vector's AUTOSAR Basic Software.